Natalie Wood was probably born for the role of Maggie the Cat, a frustrated woman trapped in a marriage to a drunk who doesn't want to face the reality of life. Playing her husband Brick, a former football player and commentator, is real-life husband Robert Wagner - and those who only know him from 'Hart to Hart' will be surprised by how good an actor he is here.
In a set which is strictly budget, but still gets across the claustrophobia of a Southern summer, Wood and Wagner spar with each other, and balance the slight overacting (and strange make-up) of Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy, the patriarch who doesn't realise his time is up.
All three are very good in this play and some areas which were excised from the better-known Taylor-Newman film return to the script, and the plot is all the better for it. But this is Natalie Wood's show, and she knows it. Still glamorous in middle-age, she purrs and plots to save her marriage and get one over her greedy, grasping in-laws, Gooper and May, and their 'no-neck monsters'.
Well worth watching and very enjoyable.
In a set which is strictly budget, but still gets across the claustrophobia of a Southern summer, Wood and Wagner spar with each other, and balance the slight overacting (and strange make-up) of Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy, the patriarch who doesn't realise his time is up.
All three are very good in this play and some areas which were excised from the better-known Taylor-Newman film return to the script, and the plot is all the better for it. But this is Natalie Wood's show, and she knows it. Still glamorous in middle-age, she purrs and plots to save her marriage and get one over her greedy, grasping in-laws, Gooper and May, and their 'no-neck monsters'.
Well worth watching and very enjoyable.